Techcircle Startup 2016 - Delhi Edition

Funding crunch is the new buzz word in the Indian startup ecosystem. We talk about the same ecosystem which until the mid of 2015 witnessed record breaking growth and inflow of money. But come to the end quarter of 2015 and the startup environment was marred with slowdown in funding, devaluations, scaling downs, closures, hiring fiascos and laying offs. The present situation has not changed much and can be seen as a ripple effect of ecosystem trying to bring in balance between entrepreneurial ambitions and investors pragmatism.

Despite challenges, the stakeholders of startup ecosystem still have an optimistic outlook. The reasons are multi-fold, starting from angel networks trying to bridge the funding gap, availability of dry powder among the marquee VCs and newer emerging funds to big corporates supporting startups through focussed incubators. Besides, new investment vehicles such as “Venture Debt”, new genre of celebrity & angel investors are coming to rescue the startups that are looking for bridge rounds.

In all, the Indian startup story is at an interesting intersection with startups chasing profitability over growth, balancing valuations and finding solutions to a few challenges with the hope of sailing it through. The Delhi edition of Techcircle Startup Tour would host meaningful conversations around squeezing funding rounds, crunch of Series A investments and strategies to sail through in difficult times.

Day 1: 23 AugustTC Startup Walkabouts
A guided tour of India’s top venture capital funds, leading startups and corporates in Delhi for an interactive session with the top management. The delegates will know more about funding options, mentorship approach and startup trends.

10.00AM- 10.20AMKeynote Address by Vineet Nayar - Former CEO of HCL Technologies and Founder of Sampark Foundation on The evolving landscape of niche opportunities.

10.20AM - 11.05AMPanel 1: From an Investor’s Lens: Is “Series A” funding no more the focus?
As per the recent half yearly report by VCCedge, the data platform of VCCircle, “Series A” round of investment has barely contributed 38% in the first half of the year, which is lowest if compared to past 5 years. While this is affecting the startups in “High-Growth-High-Burn” mode, is it safe to assume current startup ecosystem lacks enough high quality startups eligible for Series A & beyond round of investments? Is the current play only around Angel Investments & bridge rounds? How can one assess current situation from an Investor’s lens?

12.15PM - 01.00PMPanel 2: Bitter & Better - New rules for startups
Startups need to align with need of the hour - an astute business strategy, plan A & B for revenue, lean and efficient operational structure and a scalable model. Tough it might be, but being sure of all these factors will have a definite buy-in with investors. What are these new rules and how can one emerge stronger from this funding crunch?

02.00PM - 02.30PMPanel 3: Venture debt coming to rescue of Startups
Venture debt is not new to Indian start-up ecosystem and yet it is now taking off in the real sense. Is this funding crunching opening door for an alternate source of investments? Do startups understand the real value venture debt brings to the table?

02.40PM - 03.25PMPanel 4: Angels in the driving seat: How far will this go?
Angel investors clearly seem to be in the driving seat with clinching 369 deals in the H1 of 2016, 16% more than last year. While the number of deals have grown, deal values have slipped showing a clear trend of “Cautious money” available in the market. Clearly the FoMo (Fear of Missing Out) effect has settled and no one is in a hurry to put in the first cheque, at any cost. With angel investments beefing up and subsequent rounds dropping, how far this can go for startups and angels?

03.35PM - 04.05PMTechcircle Meetup (Parallel Session)
A specially tailored session for startups to meet and greet the leading investors of India. The meetup will happen in a business area allowing adequate time to pitch, learn and form acquaintances. In order to nominate your startup for this session click here.

03.50PM - 04.35PMPanel 5: Business Valuations - Key to ensure investments & long-term sustainability
Correct valuation to business is as important to startup as to an investor. While skewing away from this might give short term wins, the longer sustainability can be achieved only by having correct idea of what a business has to gain or lose. Views from legal agencies, investors and startups.

04.45PM - 05.00PMSomething different: An amateur’s approach
Child prodigy’s, viral campaigns and out-of-the-box success stories; rookies sometime strike the jackpot. Let us listen to few to understand their point of view and their approach to challenges.

Akshat Mittal - Founder, Odd-even.com

05.00PM - 05.15PMPresentation: Going back to the School: Role of academic networks and mentoring
From mentoring to filling in acquaintances gap, academic alma maters can do a lot for startups. Further, when it comes to a guru imparting knowledge filled with practical solutions, the impact is much forceful. This session will discuss how leading technology and management institutions in India already contributing in a big way to the startup ecosystem through mentorship initiatives. How can these networks help sail through tough times?

Akshat Mittal is Serial Entrepreneur working on ventures which can bring huge social impact. He loves to brainstorm on social issues and find possible technology solutions to those. He is founder of Odd-even.com a startup which helped citizens carpool during Odd-even formula in Delhi and later sold to Orahi.com making Akshat one of the youngest entrepreneurs in the world.

Akshat now sits on Board of Orahi as Technical Advisor and is working on his next ventures called ChangeMyIndia and iDiskuss which also addresses social issues. Class IX student of Amity International School,Noida , he is outstanding academic performer and aspires to go for higher education at Ivy League colleges in US. Akshat is student of TiE Young Entrepreneur Program. Akshat loves to code technology solutions and plays badminton.

The Chief Financial Officer of Kraftly, Mr. Ankit Sood, had over 8 years of experience before he joined Kraftly. After completing his graduation from Purdue University and Post graduation from Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, he joined CITI as Senior Summer Associate - Investment Banking. He had been the Associate Vice President for Anand Rathi Private Wealth Ltd. from May 2008 – July 2011 and for Avendus Advisors from June 2011 – August 2014. He has a thorough expertise in the field of Financial Modeling, Business Strategy, Valuation, Strategy, Business Analysis, Investment Banking, Management Consulting, Capital Markets, Team Management, Corporate Finance, E-commerce and Mergers & Acquisitions.

A digital marketing veteran, Atul Hegde is a visionary who co-founded Rainmaker Ventures, a unique establishment that aims to fund and wholly mentor start-ups. In a world where most funds only chase valuations, Atul believes that young start-ups and entrepreneurs must be nurtured and guided with an emphasis on thorough mentoring, and not just by seeding money, which is the current trend of the day.

At an industry level, Atul is a member of the Digital Media Committee of Industry bodies like the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). He was also the Jury Member and Advisor for the Indian Digital Media Awards. He has won prestigious awards at Cannes, Abbys, Effies, and IDMA and has launched India’s 1st Digital Media Handbook in 2010. Atul was recently awarded the top digital media professional in Asia.

Atul possesses an outspoken personality and likes to describe himself as a ‘professional entrepreneur’.

In his 20 year long career, Atul has worked across Advertising, Brand Identity Design and Digital Media Marketing. He has had highly successful stints at Euro RSCG and Vyas Giannetti Creative—both leading advertising agencies in the country. He has handled brands across Asia, Middle East and Europe. He also held the post of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Ignitee Digital Services Pvt and where he was responsible for the overall operations of Ignitee’s business in India and abroad.

At Ignitee, he played the key role to drive huge waves in the online space for brands such as Maruti Suzuki which has been ranked Number 1, by the Mckinsey Nielsen report for being the most successful brand in creating social media brand equity in India.
Other renowned brands under his kitty include Viacom18, Standard Chartered, Whirlpool, Samsonite, Askme, MAKE IN INDIA, among many others.
Through his vision, Atul aims to identify and nurture potentially dynamic young businesses and push them to the forefront creating globally renowned brands through the process.

Dhruv is a Principal Associate at PSA and co-heads the practice group that advises startups and investors, both financial and strategic, across a diverse range of sectors. With a keen interest in technology businesses, Dhruv mentors some early stage entrepreneurs and assists them in the execution of their projects. Some of the key sectors he has worked on are healthcare, food tech, ed-tech, delivery and logistics, e-commerce and retail, digital mapping, artist aggregator platforms, hospitality, wedding gift registry platforms, loyalty and rewards platforms, clean energy and waste management solutions. He regularly writes for yourstory.com and is an avid reader of technology blogs. Outside of this space, as a M&A lawyer, Dhruv also advises large manufacturing and services companies on the buy side as well as on the sell side of deals. He did his LL.B from Delhi and then went on to do his LL.M from Columbia Law School, New York.

Faisal Farooqui is a highly recognized IT entrepreneur who is among the trailblazers of his generation. He was among the lead petitioners who challenged the various sections of the IT Act, which finally resulted in a victory for the entire nation, when the Supreme Court declared 66A as illegal and diluted many other sections. As a result no more arrests for speaking your mind. No more content takedown without a court order.

Faisal is the founder and CEO of MouthShut.com
MouthShut.com is India’s largest consumer review and recommendation platform, with reviews on lakhs of products

Faisal has addressed and presented at more than 300 national and international conferences and seminars including at IIM Ahmadabad and IIT Mumbai. His work on Internet Technology, Branding, Entrepreneurship, social media and e-commerce has appeared or been profiled in almost all major newspaper and magazines and TV channels in India as well as Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC and Financial Times. He is also internationally recognized for his thoughts on integrating consumer-generated content with mobile and social media. He served on the Internet Task Force of NASSCOM and was an advisor to TIE for India’s new Copyright Act. The British High Commission has included Faisal among the list of top 50 young leaders who’ve demonstrated potential to change the country.

Faisal has a degree in Information Systems and Finance from State University of New York. He is a self-confessed tech geek, enjoys growing vegetables and loves horse-riding.

Gaurav Sachdeva is Managing Partner, JSW Ventures - an early stage fund promoted by JSW Group. In a career spanning 15 years, Gaurav has passionately built businesses across Banking, Technology and Investing. Gaurav was a founding member of Corporate Finance teams at Citibank, N.A. & Bank of America and established Sales network for Infosys in Continental Europe. In his previous role at Times Group, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Limited, Gaurav invested in and managed portfolio companies across Financial Services, Consumer and Real Estate.

Gaurav is extremely passionate about the role of technology in transforming business models and building consumer experience. He managed Times Group’s investments in Aegon Religare Life Insurance, IIFL, MCX, BSE and Faces Cosmetics. At JSW Ventures, Gaurav actively manages Overcart and Purplle.

Gaurav is an MBA from Indian School of Business. He is an avid swimmer and likes to listen to Jazz and Western Classical Music.

Geetansh Bamania, an enthusiastic entrepreneur and dynamic personality started his career in engineering from IIT Madras. By the age of 27, Geetansh is already a serial entrepreneur with prior forays in community learning (Click2skill) and philanthropic crowdfunding (HopeMonkey). He has also worked with companies like Flipkart, Pepperfry and KPGM.

Geetansh along with Ajay Nain launched RentoMojo in Dec 2014, to provide frugal furnishing rental solutions to the ever-increasing population of migrants in major cities across India looking for quick solutions for furnishing.

“Increased mobility among the working population today has resulted in a surge in the disposable income pie and this is divided into transport spend, mobile bills, hangouts, leisure trips, shopping, etc. With easy, affordable and hassle-free solutions from Rentomojo, this disposable income can be allocated to better life experiences without being tied to furniture and appliances that people may not need in the future. Rentomojo provides affordable lifestyle solutions which come without the inertia of disposing off the assets or unnecessary relocation related expenditure” says Geetansh.

This ambitious start-up genius has now revolutionized the way people meet their lifestyle needs by promoting and encouraging new-age folks to start renting instead of spending money to buy furniture and other household appliances.

Meet Kanika Tekriwal, one of the 100 most inspirational women chosen by BBC and 30 entrepreneurs under 30 recognised by Forbes Asia amongst others. An entrepreneur who is a relentless pursuer of hope, positivity and drive. Her energy is infectious. A marathon runner, a painter, a traveler and more, she is redefining her life every day.

JetSetGo
JetSetGo - India’s first and only market place for private jets is an interactive technology driven platform enabling users to search and charter aircrafts and helicopters across India.

Kanika has been working in the aviation industry for almost a decade now since she was 17 years old. She started working in the industry when private jets in the country were far and few! Besides India she has also worked abroad and seen the industry grow (and shrink, of course) and learnt a thing or two about the industry. JetSetGo is the result of this varied experience.

Over the past few years she noticed the frustration of customers while dealing with charter brokers and operators. Customers felt that there was a need for a professional and comprehensive charter service providing a variety of aircrafts with a transparent pricing system. Given that the private aviation industry in India is still nascent, users are generally recommended aircrafts that suit brokers more than the users themselves.

JetSetGo endeavours to change this and make private jet charter very economical and simple.

Karan Kirpalani, is the Associate Vice President - Product Management at Netmagic, an NTT Communications Company. Joining Netmagic when the company was in its nascent stage, Karan has played two pivotal roles for over a decade and a half. He joined as the Director for Business Development at Netmagic USA responsible for developing the company’s business overseas. He is currently responsible for end-to-end Product Conceptualization and Management for several critical and high impact product lines including Cloud Services, Managed Hosting, Network Storage and Services, and Application Services.

Prior to Netmagic, Karan was associated with ICICI Bank as part of the online content and web application team. Karan is a graduate in Economics from Mumbai University. He is a guest lecturer at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, enlightening engineering students on cloud and other IT infrastructure technologies.

Karan’s dedication to what he does and business insight makes him a visionary and thought leader in the field. He is an avid reader, and has written articles, whitepapers and blogs on various technologies.

Founder and Managing Partner of WaterBridge Ventures with a focus on early stage investments in India. Investor in over a dozen angel investments with companies like Baxi, Edukart, ProperFood etc.

Over a 15 year long investing career, has led investments for Providence Equity Partners, Actis Capital and Rho Ventures in India and USA. Led investments of over US$ 650m ranging from growth to late stage for global funds. He has also worked in product management roles in Infosys and Ciena. Board / Advisory Board member of several private companies including Fortune Institute of International Business, MDL Energy, Spectranet.

Mukul Singhal is Co Founder and Partner at Pravega Ventures. Pravega Ventures is an early stage fund focused for seed stage and pre series A stage. Before Pravega, Mukul led the seed stage investments at SAIF Partners. In the past, He has led investments in companies like UrbanClap, IndustryBuying, TravelTriangle, NoBroker, PropTiger, Tracxn, App Iterate and Qikwell.

He is Bachelor of Technology from IIT Kanpur and MBA from ISB, Hyderabad.

Naganand Doraswamy is an entrepreneur with extensive experience in management and technology. He is a successful entrepreneur and is well networked in the community. He has over 25 years of experience in the industry and has held several leadership roles. He has participated actively in many standard bodies and has been an invited speaker in various panels and conferences such as Network+Interop. He is the President of TiE Bangalore, on board of TiE Global trustees , NASSCOM 10,000 start-up warehouse in Bangalore an a member of FICCI start-up committee. He is on various committees of Government of Karnataka to further entrepreneurship.

Naganand founded Ideaspring capital to invest in very early stage product innovation companies. In addition to funding, the fund has a unique program “startup assist” that provides key interventions to increase focus on customer and product management.

At SPAN (www.spansystems.com), as a Co-Founder and EVP, Naganand is actively contributing to engineering in R&D and development as well as operations including HR, IT, and operations. In addition co-managing the engineering team, he is also focused on building a business unit in the area on data and wireless networking. He is also actively contributing to the strategy and growth of the company.

Prior to joining SPAN, Naganand was co-founder of Lexar Networks, MA, USA working on an idea in cellular and Wi-Fi convergence. Prior to that, he was the Director of Software at PhotonEx Corporation, MA, USA where he built carrier class software for long haul transmission systems. He was one of the very early hire into the company that raised over $160 million in funding.

Prior to PhotonEx, he was a Consulting Engineer at Nortel Networks. He was one of the architects and a technical lead for Nortel’s core router. Prior to that, he worked on next generation network architectures and protocol in Bay Networks Architecture Labs and made significant contributions to various products at Bay Networks. Prior to joining Bay Networks, as an architect and technical lead for TCP/IP stack and IP Security at FTP Software, Inc. he and developed the industry’s first client IP Security solution.

Naganand is a published author. He co-authored a book on IPSecurity titled “IPSec: The new security standard for the Internet, Intranets, and Virtual Private Networks,” published by Prentice Hall. As an active participant in IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) he was the chair of IP Compression Working group and chaired “Birds Of a Feather” forums (BOF’s) on VPNs. He has been awarded 8 patents and 2 patents are pending in the area of networking and security. He has 11 technical publications published in journals and conferences, has given numerous workshops at the Networld+Interop, and has been on various technical panels.

Naganand is co-founder and on the board of ScienceAdda (www.scienceadda.com) which focusses bringing curated and mobile experiential zones in various aspects of Science to schools. Naganand served on the boards of SPAN Infotech India, Aylus Networks India Pvt Ltd (www.aylus.com) and Basil India (www.basilcom.biz).

Naganand has a Masters in Computer Science from Virginia Polytechnic and State University. He got his Bachelors in Computer Science from U.V.C.E, Bangalore, India. Naganand is married with two kids. He loves playing tennis and occasional golfing. He enjoys reading fiction.

Pankaj Jain is a Partner at 500 Startups, a California based seed fund and accelerator program. Pankaj focuses on investing in early stage startups across New York City, India, South Asia and has led investments in over fifty companies at 500 Startups across 6 countries. After getting his B.S. from NYU’s Stern School of Business, Pankaj spent over 12 years in the Financial industry at firms such as JP Morgan, Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) and GlobeOp Financial Services.

At Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM), Pankaj served in various roles including enterprise mortgage risk management, application development architecture, and market data infrastructure. From there, Pankaj went on to become one of the founding employees of GlobeOp Financial Services in late 1999, where he headed the firm’s trade management, pricing and data infrastructure as well as customer service areas.

In 2007, Pankaj’s adventures in India began, where he started a company building an on-demand, employment marketplace for the under-served. In 2008, Pankaj became a co-founder of the HeadStart Network Foundation and the led the efforts in Delhi. In late 2010, he began the process of founding Startup Weekend in India and led the organization until 2013.

In early 2012, Pankaj began working with TLabs, an Indian accelerator, where he helped source, select and invest in startups for the first two cohorts. In late 2012, Pankaj joined 500 Startups to lead the firm’s investments in Indian startups. Pankaj moved back to New York City in late 2013 and continues to focus on Indian startups targeting the domestic Indian market as well as a global market. Pankaj loves to eat, play video games, write really bad Perl code and sit on tropical beaches
doing nothing. He sometimes blogs at http://blog.pjain.me and can be found on Twitter at @pjain

Pankaj Makkar is currently the Managing Director of Bertelsmann India Corporate Centre. He led the setup of the Corporate Centre in 2011 and has been active in helping define and execute the growth strategy for Bertelsmann and its divisions in India. He currently runs the Bertelsmann India Investment fund, which is Bertelsmann strategic investment vehicle investing in venture and growth opportunities in Media, Education, Digital and BPO sectors.

Pankaj sits on the board of various companies such as Authorgen Technologies, Big RTL Broadcast and Bertelsmann India Corporate Services. He joined Bertelsmann Inc. in 2009 in the company’s Bertelsmann Entrepreneur’s program. As part of the program, Pankaj initially worked on projects including Random House (US), ZD group on their education initiatives.

Pankaj worked from 2003 to 2007 with the Malaysian conglomerate – The Usaha Tegas Group and helped the group invest in various sectors in India and South East Asia. Working with various top executives of the group, he led key investment projects in the Television, Radio, TV Distribution, Internet, Telecom and Real Estate sectors for the group’s divisions including Astro All Asian Networks, Maxis Communications, Measat Satellite Systems, Powertek and UT Real Estate.

Pankaj holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in Commerce (Hons.) from Delhi University. He is also a member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and has spent around 3 years (2000-2003) in audit, accounting and consulting assignments for his family firm SSA India for Indian and International clients.

Combining her experience in lifestyle journalism with a flair for fashion, Priyanka Gill created POPxo in 2014 as a digital content platform for engaging content lifestyle content for young Indian women. This dynamic startup reaches over 25 lakh women every month. It is available in Hindi and English, engaging audience via both video and text. She keeps the brand ahead of the curve with initiatives such as the POPxo Style Council and the POPxo Blog Network. These influencers and curators at the heart of the POPxo concept are drawn from her wide-reaching network of friends and contacts.

After graduating with honours from Lady Sri Ram College in Delhi, Priyanka went on to contribute to Vogue India, The Guardian, Travel + Leisure and Grazia.in. She is a Contributing Editor to Harper’s Bazaar India and guest-edited the India special issue of the Mayfair Times magazine in June 2013.

As an investor, Priyanka works with early stage tech startups and food concepts, such as Bea’s of Bloomsbury, Campanja, SoundOut, Yieldify and Raptor Supplies, as an investor, board member or advisor. She extends time and support to several charities. She co-chaired the Pratham UK gala in 2009-2010, raising over GBP 2 million for the charity. She also advises Akshayapatra UK, and the Savitri Waney trust as an advisory board member.

A busy mother of two young children, Priyanka juggles a demanding family life with her passion for work and travel. She is a recipient of the FICCI Women’s Achiever's Award 2015.

Raghav Himatsingka comes from a family that has been in the transport business for nearly a 100 years - from the days of horse carriages. He has been a lifelong student of supply chain logistics, having studied the subject at Georgia Tech and Stanford University and applying his knowledge in his work for the last 8 years.

In 2015, Raghav founded Truckola - a tech focused inter state cargo transport company - which is rapidly disrupting the fundamentals of the transport industry in India. His company recently raised a small round of angel investment from a group of marquee investors. Raghav is deeply passionate about entrepreneurship, technology in business, leadership, mentoring young graduates, and solving the major issues plaguing the Indian transport industry like driver welfare, corruption, vehicle idling, etc.

Rahul is a co-founder at Treebo, a tech-enabled budget hotel brand. Prior to founding Treebo in 2015, Rahul has held multiple positions in Flipkart-Myntra across Strategy and Marketing. Before that, Rahul was a Senior Engagement Manager at McKinsey where he served clients in Telecom, Technology and Consumer industries. Rahul also did a brief stint as Head of Research & Scouting at Olympic Gold Quest, a non-profit organisation. He holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and a B.Tech. from IIT Roorkee.

Rahul Khanna is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Trifecta Capital, India’s first Venture Debt fund. He was previously, Managing Director at Canaan Partners, a global venture capital fund with $4 billion under management. Rahul has twenty years of investing and operating experience in Technology, Media and Telecoms.

Having returned to India from Silicon Valley in 2005, Rahul has played a key role in the development of the venture capital ecosystem in India and has been an active investor in several high growth companies like Billdesk, LoyltyRewardz, Equitas and Naaptol.

Rahul also supports the startup ecosystem by advising early stage companies and making angel investments. Rahul has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Rajesh Sawhney is the founder of GSF Superangels of India network and the host of Global Superangels Forum (GSF). He is also the co-host and curator of Founders Forum India. Rajesh is building the vital pieces of a nascent ecosystem for the early stage investing in India. Rajesh has made over a dozen angel investments so far. He is launching Indiaâ€™s first multi-city accelerator programme (GSF Accelerator) in October, 2012. Earlier as the President of Reliance Entertainment, Rajesh led Reliance Groupâ€™s foray into media & entertainment spanning movie eco-system, broadcasting, and New Media. Previously with the Times Group in India, Rajesh launched a number of successful ventures across different domains: Publishing, Radio & TV, Retailing, online classifieds, MVAS, e-commerce and e-travel.

Raju Narisetti is Senior Vice President, Strategy, for News Corp. He is primarily involved in new ventures and acquisitions that help drive digital growth and ongoing reshaping of News Corp., through new companies or by expanding existing operating units.

Previously, Mr. Narisetti served as a Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal and Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. In this role, he headed editorial teams and content strategy for WSJ.com, MarketWatch.com, WSJ Live video platforms, and Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch Radio Networks.
Mr. Narisetti also served as Managing Editor of Washington Post Co. 2009-2011, overseeing digital content, news products and new businesses, as well as its editing, design, photo, video, engagement and social media teams. Teams he oversaw won three Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure.

Prior to joining the Post, Mr. Narisetti served as Founder/Editor of India's Mint newspaper, which is now India's second-largest business newspaper, by circulation.
During his previous journalism tenure with WSJ, starting as a Summer Intern in 1991, Mr. Narisetti held multiple roles, eventually becoming Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe in 2006, where he led the re-launch of the European and Asian multi-platform editions of the Journal. He began his journalism career at The Economic Times in New Delhi, India, and later worked as a Staff Writer at The Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio.

Mr Narisetti was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2007, where is on the Alumni governance board. He is a trustee of the International Institute of Education (IIE), which administers the Fulbright fellowships and the Scholar Rescue Fund, and a Vice Chairman on the board of ICFJ.org, the International Center for Journalists.

Mr. Narisetti holds a BA degree from Osmania University in Hyderabad and an MBA from the Institute of Rural Management in Anand; a Post Graduate diploma from The Times School of Journalism in New Delhi; and an MA in Journalism from Indiana University.

He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his author wife Kim Narisetti and two daughters Leila and Zola.

Ruchira Shukla has over 20 years of experience across private equity investing, strategy consulting, and investment banking across Asia, US and Europe. Her sector focus spans across consumer internet, healthcare technology, edutech, cleantech and telecom.

Ruchira studied at IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad in India. She also graduated as Palmer Scholar from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Currently at IFC, she is the Regional Lead, South Asia for Venture Capital Investments.

Prior to co founding Iron Pillar in January 2016, Sameer was an investment banker for 15 years, all with Citigroup. Iron Pillar is a venture capital fund focused on filling the gap for "mid stage" technology investments in India. It backs proven and visionary technology companies in the consumer and enterprise space post Series A. It actively partners with entrepreneurs and early stage investors to help companies by leveraging extensive experience in India, the US, China and SE Asia. The 6 person Iron Pillar team has 17 years of average experience and complementary skill sets in venture investing, M&A, operations and technology.

Sameer’s investment banking experience spans a wide spectrum of transactions across M&A, Equity / Debt Capital Markets and Private Equity Advisory. He was a Managing Director at Citi since 2010 and helped build market-leading franchises in M&A in India and Technology in India and globally. For the last 2 years, Sameer was responsible for leading Citi’s investment banking coverage for Private Equity and Industrials/Conglomerate clients throughout Southeast Asia. Prior to relocating to Singapore in January 2014, Sameer was Head of Mergers & Acquisitions for Citi in India, based in Mumbai. In that role, Sameer provided M&A leadership for Citi’s banking franchise in India. He was involved in the origination and execution of advisory transactions across all sectors, with a focus on large, cross-border deals including several Technology deals. Sameer led many landmark transactions in his 5.5 years in Mumbai, during which Citi was a consistent leader in the Indian M&A market.

Previously, Sameer spent 6 years in Technology investment banking in New York. He visited India regularly and worked on several market-shaping M&A deals, IPOs and Leveraged Buyouts in the US-India corridor. Sameer was also selected to spend a year working with the Co-Heads and COO of Citi Global Investment Banking on management and strategic initiatives. Sameer joined Salomon Smith Barney in New York in 2001. His prior experience from 1996 to 1999 was in strategy consulting at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, based in Washington, DC. Sameer has a MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BA from Middlebury College (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude).

A former civil servant, he quit civil service in 10 years to join Booz Allen Hamilton, London as an Expert for Public Private Partnerships. Subsequently, he joined a PE Fund - FIRE Capital Fund as Executive Director (Investments)

In 2009, Sanjeeva took entrepreneurial plunge to start Smart Wave Education, Smart Wave Consulting, in addition to LMR Connect for providing outsourced engineering maintenance services. In 2013, Sanjeeva started The Entrepreneurship School where he nurtures people who want to become Entrepreneur. He actively nurtures and mentors budding entrepreneurs in their quest for idea and handholding them to through various stage of launching their ideas into high performing enterprises. Some of his protégés have successfully launched their enterprises in the recent years.

An avid researcher and consultant in areas of innovation, entrepreneurship and infrastructure development, Sanjeeva has been consultant to diverse set of organizations. His teaching and research interests are in the areas of entrepreneurship quotient, entrepreneurial teams, commercializing innovation, design thinking and product prototyping. His passion for academics has kept him actively engaged in teaching course (s) on entrepreneurship, innovation and strategy in institutions like MDI, Gurgaon and FMS, Delhi University in addition to being the Member of Entrepreneurship Skills Council set up by Government of India.

Sanjeeva is a B. Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi and MBA from Cranfield School of Management, U.K.

Shaili Chopra is one of India’s top television editor-­‐presenters. She has a prolific journalism, which has now furthered her into entrepreneurship, allowing her to
use her news skills to create meaningful content for the web. In her last role, she was the Senior Editor and Lead Anchor at ET NOW, the Economic Times Business News
Channel and earlier with India’s largest tv network NDTV where she was part of the core team that set up their business channel NDTV Profit.

In March 2016 Shaili was announced one of India’s Top 50 Most Influential Women in Media, Marketing and Advertising by IMPACT Magazine. She is the founder of two success startups called GolfingIndian.com and SheThePeople.TV

Shaili’s startups have been official partners of the government’s efforts such as StartUp India Initiative, Make In India initiative, TiE’s StartUp Expo and many more. In 2012, SheThePeople.TV is the biggest story telling platform for women achievers in India. Shaili received India’s highest honour in journalism The Ramnath
Goenka Award for best in Business Journalism. She also won the Media Foundation Best Business Anchor Award for 2010 and in the same year the Federation of Indian
Industry (FICCI) gave her the Young Women’s Achiever Award for contribution to media. She also won the News Television Award for the Best Reporter in India in 2007 and
laterin 2008, her business-­‐golfshow Business on Course, won the Best Show Award.

Shaili Chopra has been at the forefront of key global events including the G-­‐20 of 2008 in Washington on dealing with the big economic crisis, Prime Minister’s visit
for bilateral talks in Germany, World Economic Forum in Davos (2011 and 2012), India Economic Summit and the World Retail Congress. She also spoke at the Doha Middle
Eastern Economic Summit (May 2015) on the power of Social Media.

Shivjeet Kullar has spent over 25 years in advertising. He began his career with agencies like Lintas and Contract. At the age of 29 he became a Creative Director and went on to win over 100 national and international awards, including One Show, New York Festival, Creativity International and JWT - All World Gold.

When he was 37, after winning Delhi Copywriter of The Year he became a partner-consultant to the Advantage Asia group and worked out of their Delhi, Sri Lanka and Jakarta offices.

Among his well known campaigns are the BJP Campaign that won them the previous elections, Shah Rukh Mayur Khan, AC Black Whisky and Bole Mere Lips I Love Uncle Chips.
Till recently he was a mentor to the ad agency that he founded - K-Factor- which itself has won awards at Delhi Ad Club, Bombay Ad Club and Creativity New York.
He was also a consultant in the event world where he worked with all the latest event technologies including 270 projection, holograph, ventuz and water projection. Many of the events he has helped to create have won international awards.

For ten years he wrote a column - Dilli To Pagal Hai, which has made him a household name in Delhi, it was later released as a book. He’s collaborated with Shiamak Dawar to write ‘Yes’ - The Musical. (where he worked with Bryan Tellis and Fountainhead). He has also just published a fiction thriller titled ‘Taking The Taj.’ Talks are on to produce it as a film.

His first play ‘Shiva Calling’ will debut on stage later this year.

In 2011 the world renowned Campaign magazine did a survey and ranked him as one of the 10 most high profile creative people in India, the only creative person in Delhi to be named on the list.

He has now moved to the internet domain and launched a ‘first time in the world’ website called adytude.com. The site is achieving remarkable success, was funded by IAN - the largest Angel Netwrok in the world, and has an ultimate valuation of $100 million by Deloitte. It will be launched in 15 countries worldwide in the coming years.

Shweta is a Vice President at Lumis Partners where she is responsible for building the human capital and education technology portfolio. She has a firm grounding of corporate finance as well as hands-on operations, entrepreneurial and early stage investing experience.

Prior to joining Lumis, Shweta ran an early stage investment firm - Sol Primero where she invested in high growth internet businesses across various sectors. She has worked with some leading emerging Indian internet companies such as Zomato and Flipkart in an operational capacity. She began her career as an Investment Banker with UBS in London where she structured and executed several equity raisings as well as acquisitions on behalf of her clients.

Shweta holds an MBA in Operations & Entrepreneurial Management from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, a Masters in Economics from University of Cambridge and an Undergraduate degree in Mathematics from St. Stephens College, University of Delhi.

Sid is a co-founder and partner at Lightbox. He moved to India in 2001 to found Evolv, a vocational training company funded by Singapore Technologies – their first early stage investment in the sub-continent. Over the next 6 years, Sid grew Evolv to 300 employees training and assessing over 20,000 people a year across 200 cities in South Asia, East Asia and the Middle East. In 2007, he sold Evolv to NIIT - Asia's largest training company. Sid worked with NIIT for the next 3 years, heading Evolv, as well as Litmus and Uniqua (NIIT's foray into assessments and JV with Genpact). Over ten years, Sid became a master in edtech, especially in the context of India, SE Asia and emerging markets.

An entrepreneur at heart, Sid left NIIT to get back in to the startup game. Over the next few years leading up to Lightbox, he has advised several startups, angel funds, and a very special NGO called Magic Bus.

At Lightbox Sid’s role is as much about building companies as it is about bringing people together to make new things happen. He writes regularly and passionately on the dynamics of the new economy and is an influential mentor and voice on entrepreneurship in India.

As enterprising at play as he is at work, Sid recently teamed up with restaurateurs and investors to launch a series of award–winning restaurants in Delhi.

Subu is an entrepreneur and an investor. Prior to cofounding fisdom, Subu was a Managing Director at Bessemer Venture Partners where he led the firm’s technology investment activities in India. He served on the boards of Snapdeal, Bharat matrimony, TaxiForSure, Nephroplus and many others. He is also an active angel investor. Subu holds an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and Bachelors degree in engineering from Mysore University.Subu’s interests include Carnatic music, trekking in Himalayas and contemporary history.

Suraj Vazirani, 32, is a renowned name in E-Commerce Seller Ecosystem. With over 15 years of experience, Suraj is the CEO of Maniacstore.com, GetyBo – Get Your Business Online and recent venture being DSYH – Don’t Scratch Your Head – which is India’s 1st S-a-a-S into Ecommerce Reconciliation Software. Suraj is also the President of All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA) which is a 1500+ member community of E-Commerce Sellers across India. With strong domain expertise, Suraj is foraying quickly into becoming one of the young turks of India setting up a global impact on E-Commerce with his latest startup DSYH.

Vineet Nayar is Founder Chairman of Sampark Foundation and former CEO of HCL Technologies. He is also author of the highly acclaimed management book “Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down” (Harvard Business Press, June 2010) which has sold more than 100,000 copies to date.

With ‘Innovation led large scale social change’ as the central idea, Vineet co-founded Sampark Foundation with his wife, Anupama Nayar. Today Sampark Foundation is transforming learning outcomes of 3 million children studying in 50,000 schools in Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Ladakh; making it one of the world’s largest primary school transformation initiatives by a Foundation. Vineet has been cited by Forbes in its '48 Heroes of philanthropy List 2016’ and by Fortune for the pedagogical innovations the Foundation has brought into classrooms.

Vineet is also an acknowledged management visionary and a radical thinker who architected HCLT’s transformation from $0.7 billion in 2005 to a $4.7 billion Global Technology Services Company with over 85,000 employees across 32 countries in 2013. This radical transformation led Fortune to recognize HCL as “the world’s most modern management” while BusinessWeek named HCLT as “one of the world’s most influential companies”; which led HCL’s innovative management practices to be taught as a case study at both the Harvard Business School and London Business School.

Vineet was also chosen by Fortune Magazine for its first ever, global “Executive Dream Team” 2012 which has been described as an “all-star leadership” that “could coalesce and dominate in any industry”. This is in addition to his inclusion in the elite “Thinkers 50 List” in 2011-12, which is a definitive listing of the world’s top 50 business thinkers. His ideas of organization transformation have received rich praise from influencers like the late C.K. Prahalad, Tom Peters, Gary Hamel and Ram Charan.

Vineet currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the McKinsey Leadership Institute and Fortune 1000 companies. He also mentors 18 technology lead stratups and is on the Advisory Board of the Millions Learning Project led by the ex-Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard. He is also the Founding member of Brookings India and has been a Juror of Harvard Business Review’s prestigious McKinsey Prize. Previously, he has served as Governor of ICT, member of the Global Advisory Board of Women Leader's and Gender Parity Program as well as a Community Partner of the Forum of Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum. Vineet has been a “Mentor” (Co-Chair) of WEF’s 2011 AMNC Conference

He joined HCL in 1985 after earning his MBA from XLRI. In 1993, Vineet founded Comnet and helped it grow into a $1.4 billion dominant leader in Technology Management Services. In 2005, Vineet became President of HCL Technologies and served as the company’s CEO from 2007 till January 2013.
Vineet spends his spare time reading and writing on management strategy. He hosts two blogs, a personal one at www.vineetnayar.com and another for the Harvard Business Review, which can be found here.

Vinod Murali is Managing Director at InnoVen Capital India and is responsible for leading the business unit engaged in providing venture debt as well as managing the portfolio in India. He has successfully led his team to execute numerous Venture Debt transactions across sectors like technology, financial services, media, healthcare, retail and clean-tech. In addition to the venture debt portfolio, Vinod also oversees the recently launched mezzanine debt financing business aimed at providing profitable, lower middle-market founder funded companies in India with flexible growth capital options.

Prior to joining InnoVen Capital India in 2008, Vinod worked in Citigroup as part of the Corporate and Investment Banking Group where he managed large corporate relationships across Auto, Healthcare and Consumer industries. He also started Citigroup’s Media lending practice in India. Vinod started his banking career with ICICI Bank in marketing with stints in the Corporate Branding Group, Rural Business Group as well as the Corporate Banking Group.

Vinod holds a PGDBM from the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad and a Bachelor’s degree in Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology at Chennai (Madras). Vinod enjoys running and has a keen interest in Trivia as well as Science Fiction.

PSA, with offices in New Delhi and Chennai, is a solution-driven, pragmatic business law firm that delivers high-quality work, with responsiveness and client commitment as its hallmark. Be it start-ups, or large conglomerates with global footprints, the firm provides high-quality legal services in a timely and a cost-effective manner. The firm has a proven track record for innovation and has, over the years, advised domestic as well as international companies across a wide range of sectors and practice areas. One of the greatest assets offered by PSA is legal expertise combined with the business knowledge of its lawyers. Our USP is to ensure that advice is definitive, structured yet simplified so that clients are able to navigate easily through the maze of different central and state laws applicable to their businesses. The firm’s core competencies are corporate, commercial law, cross-border transactions, private equity and venture capital, intellectual property, labor la....More

10,000 Startups is an ambitious attempt by NASSCOM to scale up the startup ecosystem in India by 10x. 10,000 Startups aims to enable incubation, funding and support for 10,000 technology startups in India over the next ten years.

To meet these objective the program aims to bring together key stakeholders of the ecosystem including startup incubators / accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, startup support groups, mentors and technology corporations.

With 10,000 Start-ups NASSCOM aims to build a vibrant ecosystem for technology entrepreneurship in India.

Learntron is a SAAS product for the learning industry to deliver high-engagement education and training experiences online on all devices in emerging market network conditions. Leveraging the latest learning design principles along with the state-of-the-art mobile web technologies, Learntron is targeted at 3 segments - corporate, online education (tutoring companies, online learning companies) and K-12 schools in the developing Asia markets - India, Middle East and SE Asia, on a partner-led b2b business model. Proven “product-market fit”, with current annual revenue run rate of $420,000, growing at 30% MoM. Pricing model is based on a recurring annual or monthly per user subscription.

Tata Docomo Business Services is a growing market leader in the enterprise space and provides end to end integrated Voice, Data and Managed solutions to large and small medium enterprises through its wider network footprint, better operational structure and enhanced customer service support to deliver incremental value. Tata Docomo has a robust and largest fibre optic backbone backhaul network running across 1,00,000 km and with a 25,000 km access network covering key cities which is a huge differentiator in providing seamless data services. With 2000 people Tata Docomo Business Services strong enterprise business is present in more than 60 cities across India, works with over 750 partners and 1600 channel teams.

It is one of the pioneers in providing FTTH (Fibre-to-home) which runs on state-of-the-art Gigabit Passive Optical Networking, the GPON technology. Its machine-to-machine (M2M) offerings enable business customers to automate and remotely manage a range of activiti....More

Skootr is the pioneer of the finest co-working spaces in the country. Established in 2015, Skootr has evolved to become a name synonymous with high quality offices & standardized services in India and abroad. With more than 1000 Skootrists, we intend to change the paradigm of how offices are picturised. From ultra modern and yet socially open co-working spaces for freelancers & entrepreneurs to the large BPO/ Call centres, we have it all covered. With Skootr, all your worries end as we bring to you international level of expertise and commitment. So as our motto says, just COME. SIT. WORK.

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) was founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley by a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and senior professionals with roots in the Indus region. There are currently 13,000 members, including over 2,500 charter members in 61 chapters across 18 countries. TiE’s mission is to foster entrepreneurship globally through mentoring, networking, education, incubation and education. Dedicated to the virtuous cycle of wealth creation and giving back to the community, TiE and TiE Rajasthan’s focus is on generating and nurturing our next generation of entrepreneurs.

TiE Rajasthan is a vibrant and active chapter of TiE Global founded in 2002. Being honoured with the coveted award for being ‘The Most Improved Chapter 2014-15’, TiE Rajasthan has been conducting popular events for entrepreneurs. The foremost and most widely known events that TiE Rajasthan hosts is Smash Up and TiEcon, which sees a host of entrepreneurs partic....More

Indian Angel Network, India's first and largest angel network, brings together successful entrepreneurs and CEOs who share a passion to enable more early stage businesses to create scale and value. By focusing on startups, the Network addresses the current acute lack of funds available to early stage companies. The Network believes that early stage businesses require more than just money to succeed. They require close mentoring and inputs on strategy as well as execution.

Indian Angel Network currently has over 300 members drawn from across the country and some from overseas, comprising the who's who of successful Indian entrepreneurs and CEOs from diverse sectors (information on www.indianangelnetwork.com). The Network has met with early success and has already invested in 100 portfolio companies including investee and incubatee companies. IAN has become the hub for innovative ventures founded by high quality entrepreneurs seeking mentoring an....More

Mumbai Angels, started in 2006 is the first premium Angel network in India. The Mumbai Angels provides a unique platform to start up and very early stage companies by bringing them face to face with successful entrepreneurs, professionals and executives who are interested in and have the funds available to invest in start-up companies. Many members of Mumbai Angels have prior Silicon Valley experience. In addition to the capital of its members, the Mumbai Angels provides access to high quality mentoring, vast networks in India and abroad and inputs on strategy as well as execution.

Mumbai Angels provides its portfolio companies with a level of assistance that surpasses their highest expectations. Mumbai Angels network of relationships and their ability to leverage those relationships on behalf of their portfolio companies is unparalleled. Mumbai Angles members and their organisations have come to represent the ideal business partner for entrepreneurs who wish to start and....More

LetsVenture is India's first and largest startup-investor platform. Founded in late 2013, LetsVenture is the most trusted marketplace for startups to create their investment ready profile, and connect to global, accredited investors for fundraising. Today 6500+ startups, 1200+ angel investors, and 200+ institutional investors from 21 countries are interacting on the platform. 57 startups have closed rounds on LetsVenture with $17M in total commits. Led by a strong team, with some of the best marque angel investors as advisors to the company, LetsVenture is an Accel funded startup, based in Bangalore.

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE)
TiE is recognized as a global organization fostering entrepreneurship through mentoring, networking and education. The purpose of TiE is to encourage and nurture the next generation of entrepreneurs and add to the virtuous cycle of wealth creation spurring development and economic growth of the world.

Founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley by a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives and senior professionals with roots in Indus region, TiE is a unique platform which brings all the stake holders - Entrepreneurs, Academia, Angel Investors, Venture Capitalists, Banks, Incubators and corporate together and makes them accessible to entrepreneurs.
There are currently over 16,000 members including over 2,500 charter members in 61 chapters across 17 countries.

TiE Delhi - NCR
TiE Delhi - NCR is among the largest and most vibrant chapter across the vast TiE network. In th....More

Startup Grind is a global startup community educating, inspiring, and connecting entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in more than 150 cities and 65 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Our monthly fireside chat interviews, startup mixers and annual conferences provide ample opportunities to connect with amazing startups and the people behind them, tap into a strong support network, form meaningful connections and gain inspiration for the startup journey ahead. For more information visit StartupGrind.com or follow us on twitter @StartupGrindIN / @StartupGrindMum.

India Entrepreneur's Club is an information destination, disseminating latest news, Success & Failure stories about Entrepreneurs, Business owners and Intrapreneurs with an aim to motivate and educate them to develop and expand beyond defined boundaries.

Being a unique and inimitable voice of and for the Entrepreneurs, we have initiated a platform for mentoring and developing a new breed of young risk takers. We aspire to enrich them with tips, strategies and perspectives from across the world of entrepreneurship; to execute and run businesses efficiently. I.E.C facilitates seamless expansion of knowledge and development of new skills, enhancing relevance and sustenance of lifestyle and business for the target group.

We've envisioned to create a fortified ecosystem comprising of Business Leaders, Start-ups, Private Equity and Venture Funds, M.S.M.E’s, Banks and Financial Institutions and Associations. The focus is to develop the skill of entrepr....More

91springboard is a vibrant coworking community of freelancers, startups and established small to large businesses. We are dedicated to making your work-life easy and fun while playing an integral role in helping your organization grow. Members of 91springboard get access to a coworking space with 24X7 office-infrastructure support, key service providers, knowledge sharing & collaboration, networking and of course, a free spirited culture that breeds innovation!

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Cancellation Policy:
There is no cash refund in case you cancel the registration from your end. We will issue a credit note for an equivalent amount which you can adjust/utilise against any of our future events (under the validity period) if the registration is cancelled at least 3 days before the event, post which NO credit note will be issued. Please talk to Kanika / Shikhil for further details.

If the event is cancelled from our end due to any circumstances, we will refund the registration amount.

Substitution Policy:
Substitutions within a company are permitted through the conference date. Shared registrations are not permitted under any circumstances.